


we're not promised tomorrow

by mapshirtlou



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: :-), ??? i sincerely dont know what to tag this as, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, soulmate tattoo au, soulmates are my SHIT!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-27
Updated: 2016-01-27
Packaged: 2018-05-16 15:19:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5830549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mapshirtlou/pseuds/mapshirtlou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of Adam's earliest memories is of him, sitting on his dad’s lap, eyes wide with wonder and amazement as his dad explains to him soulmate tattoos. Adam doesn’t have his yet—most don’t get them until they’re about 8—but he listens with rapt attention as his dad spins tales of destiny and fate and souls split in two and that’s it, really. </p><p>From that day forward Adam is obsessed with the tattoo on his parent’s inner wrists (an old fashioned fountain pen for his mother and a moon for his father) and the idea that he will one day get one as well. He begs his parents to read him stories of prince and princesses and star-crossed lovers, and he sits in his mother’s lap while she watches her romantic comedies and follows along attentively.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we're not promised tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> for sierra.  
> because of you. because of us. always.  
> (that was a castle reference bc that line literally always makes me wanna Die and u are the kate beckett to my richard castle (whether we're s1 and ur my best friend and im a pain in ur ass ((but secretly ur best friend too)) or we're s5 and madly in love and solving a murder together in the hamptons, you are always my kate beckett (and the baby to my johnny, brad to my angie, and most importantly the mulder to my scully)

One of Adam's earliest memories is of him, sitting on his dad’s lap, eyes wide with wonder and amazement as his dad explains to him soulmate tattoos. Adam doesn’t have his yet—most don’t get them until they’re about 8—but he listens with rapt attention as his dad spins tales of _destiny_ and _fate_ and _souls split in two_ and that’s it, really.

From that day forward Adam is obsessed with the tattoo on his parent’s inner wrists (an old fashioned fountain pen for his mother and a moon for his father) and the idea that he will one day get one as well. He begs his parents to read him stories of prince and princesses and star-crossed lovers, and he sits in his mother’s lap while she watches her romantic comedies and follows along attentively.

The day he finally got his own tattoo was one of his best days, he thinks. He was sat at a small wooden desk in his room, scribbling down math problems and thinking about going over to Miles’ house that weekend when his inner wrist starts to burn like crazy. He drops the pencil instantly and tears spring to his eyes, but he grins as he flips his wrist and watches the tattoo fade in. It’s a necklace (dog tags, he learns later) and Adam laughs, quickly running from his room to show it off to his parents.

And his father tells him that when your soulmate is near, your tattoo gets warm. So with his first boyfriend (childhood friend, big brown eyes, infectious laugh--) he tries so hard to feel the burn. He prays and prays and prays that he'll feel it once they actually start dating but he doesn't and he tries not to feel too let down. He knows realistically he won't meet his soulmate while he's in high school, but Christ, it doesn't hurt to hope (but it kind of does--with each passing relationship that doesn't burn he feels himself losing a bit of energy with this whole soulmate business but tries to keep the faith).  
  
They talk about it once. They're laying in Adam's bed, algebra books pushed aside long ago to instead study the stars projected onto Adam's ceiling, some song by the fray playing quietly from his speakers. Adam can see the inside of Miles' wrist (a squiggly smiley face that looks like something Miles drew on himself, something Adam always sort of knew didn't mean him) and asks him.  
  
"Did you feel the warm?" He asks, quiet voice disrupting the chorus of the song. "Like when we met?"  
  
Miles is quiet for a moment and Adam can practically see the internal monologue he must be having--should he lie? did adam feel the warm?  
  
"I didn't feel it, for the record," he clarifies and can see Miles sag with relief. "I was just wondering if you did."  
  
"No," he says, "and I'm sorry I didn't."  
  
Adam nods, reaching down to catch Miles hand in his own.  
  
"Me too."  
  
-  
Adam watches Miles meet his soulmate his senior year of high school. One of the lucky ones, he thinks (albeit bitterly. he tries not to be, but it doesn't work). His soulmate is named Kerry, a new transfer and one of the best art students their high school has ever seen.  
  
His friend Michael meets his soulmate his freshman year of college (a senior named Geoff), Ray his sophomore year and Gavin the same year. He waits patiently for the warmth to come and studies his dog tags intently, but it doesn't happen.  
  
He graduates college alone and isn't too bothered by it because he isn't alone, not really. Matt has an arm slung around his shoulder and is laughing loudly in his ear, feeding him promises of the future they have in store.  
  
He moves from too hot Austin Texas to Seattle and decides that this rainy city will be good for him. His plane touches down and he swears he feels a warmth spread in his wrist and he grins, tucking his carry on closer to himself and heading forward.  
  
-  
  
Seattle is rainy.

 

It's all Joel can really focus on, because it doesn't rain very much in Afghanistan, but here it _never fucking stops._ He's not used to having to carry an umbrella around to keep dry, but for the day and a half he’d been in Seattle it never left his side.

He feels like he's making small talk with himself because what he's really avoiding is the warmth spreading across his inner wrist. He's on leave from the marines for 5 days and thought hey, Seattle seems fun! So he hopped on a plane and the second he landed, his wrist flared up white burning hot before calming back down to a dull warmth.

He tightens his grip on the umbrella’s handle as he walks down the sidewalk, kicking at puddles while making his way to a grocery store. He's staying at a hotel and is tragically low on food which sparked this adventure of him wandering around the block and, instead of asking for directions, getting royally lost.

He glances briefly at his wrist, the sun tattoo as bright and puzzling as ever. Most people got soulmate tattoos that stood for something that their soulmate liked, or was a big part of their life, and unless Joel’s soulmate was the fucking _sun,_ he was stuck with a metaphor. Kinda shitty, if you asked him, because how the hell was he supposed to know what _sunshine_ looked like?

He twists his wrist inwards slightly so it was no longer in view and looks back up, grinning when he spots a grocery store called ‘Central Co-op’.

He's grateful to be inside the store, because while the rain was barely a drizzle, it was sending a chill deep to his bones. He's thankful for a split second before he looks around and realizes just what kind of grocery store he's stumbled into.

Aisles and aisles of food with signs boasting about how they're purely _organic,_ and totally _vegan_ , and Joel freezes. There are people smelling fruit, and talking about their raw food diets, and he doesn't think he has ever left a store faster.

He literally runs into a guy on his way out the door, sending himself and the guy fumbling backwards. Joel manages to stay standing, but the man slips on the wet floor and Joel curses himself as he watches the man go tumbling down.

“Shit, dude, I'm sorry,” Joel says, wrapping his arm around the man’s bicep and hauling him back to his feet.

The man laughs and runs a hand across his closely shaved head, grinning up at Joel.

“Nah, man, I'm good. I suggested my boyfriend and I start eating healthier but on the way here I kind of realized how shitty that idea is, so you kinda saved me. And by the way you were running out of here like it was on fire, I think you feel the same way. I'm Jeremy, by the way.”

Joel laughs and nods, opening his umbrella and stepping back outside with Jeremy close behind. It finally stopped raining so he closes it again and looks up, letting the new sunshine soak his face.

“Gotta say, that organic bullshit isn't really my style,” he says, looking at Jeremy out of the corner of his eye. “But it's the first grocery store I've seen and I have no food in my hotel room, so as much as it pains me to say this, I'm considering going back in.”

Jeremy makes a noise akin to that of overwhelming displeasure and grabs Joel by the wrist, dragging him in the opposite direction of his hotel.

“Um,” he says, stumbling to keep up. “Where are we going?”

“My apartment,” Jeremy says. “I'm making you dinner.”

“I could be a serial killer!” Joel exclaims.

“You're wearing dog tags. I sincerely doubt that if you were a serial killer that you would be in the military. Plus, I'm kinda ripped. I could kick your ass.”

Joel smiles despite himself, because while he wanted nothing more than to lock himself in his room and watch trashy reality TV shows, he kind of admires Jeremy’s sense of humor and a home cooked meal doesn't sound entirely awful.

So he follows quickly behind Jeremy and listens to him talk animatedly about his cats and how much Joel will love them, and how he's going to make taquitos for dinner because his boyfriend Matt just _loves_ them, and Joel finds himself listening along intently.

-

Adam’s pulse is racing as he knocks back a shot and scans the bar.

It's crowded, the noise level increasing with each person that walks through the door. Every single time somebody walks in, the bar erupts in a cheer like the person is an old friend that was a part of every legendary story that they'll one day tell their kids. It startled Adam when he first walked in, and he didn't join in with the cheering for another 3 people and 3 glasses of whiskey. Now he prepares himself when he hears the bell above the door ring, gearing up for it and laughing loudly with everybody else.

He's on a bar stool by himself but it doesn't bother him because his soulmate is nearby, he knows it. The warmth in his wrist has been heating up all day and he's practically shaking with the excitement because he's almost got his soulmate.

He's waited enough, he decides. It's his turn to fall in love with the one he was made for and get married and have a cute little house with a white picket fence, or something along those lines.

The bell rings again and Adam chokes down the whiskey in his mouth so he can cheer along with everybody else, laughing and ordering another drink when he's done. He feels oddly safe and happy in this bar in an unfamiliar city that feels like home.

He hasn't even sipped at his new drink when the bell rings again, and he throws his arms in the air to cheer but is stopped by the hot hot burn along his wrist.

Tears spring to his eyes but it's more of a knee jerk reaction because Adam fucking _knows_ what it means and it doesn't hurt. He looks to the door and sees a crowd of five people gather in and he's disappointed for a moment before realizing his soulmate would have felt it too.

He scans their faces but knows he must have missed it a second too late, because they're all looking at each other and talking. He wonders which one is his soulmate (the man with the orange beard and sweet laugh? the tall man with the dark hair and wide, animated eyes? the man with a dark beard and hat pulled over his head? the shorter one with the shaved head?) and tries not to feel too let down that his soulmate isn't scanning the room for him.

He turns to face the bar, ignoring his burning wrist and drinking his whiskey. He only gets a few sips into it before slamming it back onto the counter and standing up.

His soulmate is in the same goddamn room as him and he can't handle it.

It's too much pressure, he decides, and hey! It's not like his soulmate is going to be leaving Seattle anytime soon. They'll meet again, if this soulmate/destiny/true love stuff is real. It's a mix of the alcohol and overwhelmed nerves that makes him a sudden skeptic of the one thing he's always believed in but he’ll be fine, they'll meet again.

He repeats it to himself over and over again as he fishes his wallet out of his pocket and pays his tab, spinning on his heel to leave when he bumps into somebody.

He reaches out to steady himself and his hands wrap around a shirt and--ow, ok, his wrist is on fucking _fire_ , and—ok.. Even if his wrist wasn't burning, the dog tags dangling from the man's neck is a bit of a hint as well. His name is Joel Heyman. He doesn't really notice much else besides his brown eyes

He knows this overwhelming pain in his wrist means that the man in front of him is his soulmate, but he's staring into the biggest brown eyes he's ever seen and his head is swimming and ok, he’s pretty sure he's going to throw up.

  
And he does, right on top of his potential soulmate’s shoes.

**Author's Note:**

> this is just the first part that i wanted to post bc its just boring like lead up stuff to them meeting and after this is when it gets all exciting! and interesting! and i had nothing more to say in this part of the story really and i felt like it was a good part to end it so !!! yeah :)


End file.
